Three Times
by Atlantia
Summary: Slash TxM. Three times Tommy realised something important. Written for the Yuletide 2009 challenge, though edited from that version.


Well this was the second story I wrote for Yuletide 2009.

I didn't post it any earlier cos I wanted to work on it a bit. I wasn't completely happy with it when the upload date for yuletide arrived, but apparently there are three things you can count on in life – Death, Taxes and yuletide deadlines.

So I uploaded it…

Ironically, although I spent the greatest amount of time on this story out of the 2 I wrote (this one took about 90% of my writing time, the other a measly 10%), I was actually much happier with the other one :) I'm still not 100% happy with this rewrite, but If I wanted to go further I'd have to start from scratch and I'm just way too busy at the moment for that...

If you haven't read it, the other story I wrote is called "Try again" and it's a much better example of my writing… Though its not a BWoC story. Or even my other BWoC story "Sacrifice"… is probably better than this one I think. Maybe it's the sex in this story? Hmmm, maybe I should stop going on about how poor this story is, its not going to get me any fans lol.

Anyway, I don't know why I like writing needy Tommy so much, but I do, and I really like oblivious Merton as well :) Also, I know that this should probably be called "Four Times" but three sounds better :P

**Three Times Tommy Realised Something Important.**

Tommy had been sixteen when he first realised what it meant to have someone looking out for him.

Sixteen and hopelessly in love.

Sixteen and breaking apart.

The memory of that night was imprinted on his brain as strongly as his own name, something that had been reviewed and recited so many times, that nothing could ever make him forget.

The atmosphere had been romantic, the restaurant had been perfect, Stacy had been beautiful, and for the first time it what felt like months the wolf had been silent and calm. A barely there tingle at the back of his head that told him the wolf wouldn't ruin this one, wouldn't cause him to miss what felt like their last chance together. The wolf was playing nice.

Merton had been playing dirty.

Merton, who had turned up at the restaurant halfway through dinner and promptly joined their table as though he belonged there. Merton, who knew what Tommy's plans were for the evening and showed up anyway. Merton, who had somehow found the hotel room booking slip, but managed to miss every look Tommy now gave him.

Merton had been unrepentant.

Tommy had been upset.

Which meant the wolf had been murderous.

All of which effectively destroyed any chance of being alone with Stacy. She still didn't know, _couldn't_ know, what he was, and the wolf would never let him be with her as Tommy now. He had a hard enough time controlling it under normal circumstances.

There had been little surprise on her face when he sheepishly asked if he could call her a cab, desperately hiding his hands under the table. She hadn't even batted an eyelid when he didn't stand to lead her out. Instead, she'd stood over their table in awkward silence for a moment as though waiting for him to say or do something, anything to salvage what they had.

There was nothing.

Yellow eyes stopped him looking up, fangs stopped him from asking forgiveness and clawed hands stopped him reaching for her. There was an awkward moment, a pause in the flow of time, where Tommy almost thought she was going to stay, going to try and talk about all of what was between them. Then, he saw Merton's mouth slowly open, saw Stacy's eyes briefly dart over and catch him, and then with a polite good night, she was gone, and a cab was speeding her away. Speeding her on to more important things. More important men.

Merton had been silent beside him while he slowly brought the wolf back under control, silent, but staying, either ignorant or ignoring the animal fury that pulsed beneath Tommy's skin. A small huddled ball of black clothes and hair, faint taste of sorrow drifting past in the air. And when his eyes had finally faded from burnished gold to boring brown, cool fingers gently pried his hands loose from the tablecloth and led him carefully home.

Home… but not the place where his parents lived, where his brother lounged in front of the television.

It hadn't even occurred to him not to go back to the lair afterwards. It was just what he and Merton did. They fought monsters, the world, and sometimes each other, it didn't matter. They just kept going, together, until it was settled. And the lair was where it all came together, where werewolf and researcher once more became just Tommy and Merton.

He'd been ready to let himself go, to let his fury explode, waiting for the dark haired boy to say something that would let him release it, some stupid, sarcastic comment about how Stacy was a boring conversationalist, or how she'd never seen a good movie in her life. That one comment that Merton would make that would show just how thoughtless he really was, so that Tommy could release this heat that threatened to burn him from the inside out. But the moment didn't come, not like he'd expected.

When it came they were sitting side by side on the couch, watching some cheesy late night movie that he didn't know the name of, and Merton's voice was not that of the cheeky, impudent prankster, nor the sarcastic, abused goth, or even the ignorant, obnoxious friend. Instead it was the scared, terrified teenager, adrift in something he wasn't ready for.

"Wolves mate for life Tommy." The voice was barely there at all, a mere whisper compared to the usual boisterous manner, yet the sentence hung there, ringing in his ears like a church bell on Sundays.

"It's…" Merton stuttered, Tommy's sensitive hearing detecting the faint sound as he swallowed, "It's forever."

Understanding was like ice down his spine, a chilling rush of adrenaline that faded so swiftly all he could do was shiver, his hands tightening in the worn cushions of the couch.

"What..." His teeth clenched together so tightly he couldn't even say it, couldn't voice what those five simple words would mean for his future.

Cold fingers brushed against the back of his hand and he wrenched himself away from them, swinging out of the couch and away from the other boy faster than human eyes could follow.

The betrayal was like fuel on the now raging inferno in his chest, and brown eyes turned instantly yellow, a feral hiss between elongated fangs, and Tommy was sure he'd never before quite felt the urge to kill as he had in that moment.

"You knew!?" It was a snarl so full of hurt and pain, a blow to the very foundations of their friendship. He tasted bitterness across his tongue, an oily, sour sensation that could have been his own anger or the venom that suddenly oozed from his fangs. "Why didn't you tell me!?"

The room seemed silent after his outburst, the movie a faint background noise to his panting breaths and Merton's conspicuous silence.

"Because you're my friend... " That normally happy voice was so torn, so strained, that the fight poured out of Tommy faster than water down a drain. Lips slowly slid down over teeth as the snarl faded, fangs pulled slowly back inside his mouth as, with a swallow, his venom vanished as quickly as his anger.

"You're my friend Tommy… I couldn't…" Merton sighed and dropped his pale face into his hands. "You're my friend. You already… knowing this would have been one more thing that you always had to think about, always had to worry over." He looked so broken and sorry, so afraid and terrified that Tommy let the last of his anger gush out of him in a sigh as he flopped gracelessly back to the couch, claws returned to innocent fingernails as yellow eyes flared briefly before ruthlessly crushing the tears that threatened to overwhelm them.

"It's ok buddy." He didn't even recognise the broken voice that left his own throat, and a cool hand tentatively brushed his arm, as though for the first time uncertain how to comfort him.

"No it's not, Tommy. But it will be."

* * *

Tommy had been eighteen when he first realised he loved his best friend.

Eighteen and afraid of himself.

Eighteen and facing the world alone.

The memory of their last night out together was buried as deep within his own heart as his soul, something so undeniably his, that nothing could ever take it from him.

It had been their senior prom, a furious, frantic event that was simultaneously both the funeral of childhood and the birth of adulthood. An occasion that signalled so many endings, so many things over, never to be revisited again.

Tommy had been afraid.

Merton had been ecstatic.

The wolf had been panicked.

Academic interests had never been his strong suit. He'd always planned on pursuing football after school, a scholarship that would see him at a prestigious enough college to be noticed by scouts recruiting for the major teams. A few years playing minor games and he'd get his big break. He was good at it. He knew he was. But the wolf shattered that possibility.

Doctors, tests, physicals. All of which he could no longer pass.

His carefully planned future, just so many shards of glass.

Leaving Pleasantville was no longer an option for him. He needed the space, the empty forests and woods.

The city was no place for a wolf.

And Pleasantville was no place for Merton.

He would be leaving soon. He hadn't said as much but Tommy hadn't asked. Fear paralysed him. Fear of giving voice to the slow but inexorable tug that tore a hole in his chest every time he thought of his life without the dark haired boy.

He would be heading to somewhere bigger, more exciting, more free.

Somewhere the wolf couldn't follow. Not that Tommy would have followed him anyway.

"_It's forever."_

Those two words still haunted him. Haunted him, because he could never do that to Merton. Could never ask him to stay, never ask him to give up everything he could have. There were a lot of careers and options for someone as smart as Merton, a lot of people and places who would accept and respect him for his insight and intelligence, rather than denigrate and torment him as those at Pleasantville High had. Merton was destined to do great things, and he couldn't ruin that by tying himself to a werewolf.

Tommy had to be strong because he knew Merton wasn't.

Tommy couldn't ask, because Merton would say yes.

So he sat there on the sidelines, watching his best friend dancing awkwardly with Lori in the middle of the dance floor to some tune he didn't even want to know, and fighting the ever strengthening urge to growl at every girl that brushed against him.

Tomorrow.

He would ask Merton when he was leaving, tomorrow.

He didn't have a choice anymore, he didn't have brains like Merton, and the wolf would limit what he could do in the future, but Merton was still free. And Tommy would make him go, would encourage him to do what he wanted, because that was what best friends did for each other.

That was what you did when you loved someone.

You put them first.

* * *

Tommy had been twenty when he first realised he needed Merton.

Twenty and slowly losing himself.

Twenty and so full of rage and hatred he no longer trusted himself around people.

The memory of their first night together was burned into his flesh as deeply as the bite mark that had turned him, something painful, but so full of promise that nothing would ever be able to erase it.

He had quit yet another job, another pointless paper pushing role handed out to the Mayor's son in an attempt to curry favour, or in return for it. Tommy had quit counting or caring how many times he was hired and fired, quit wondering what he was going to be doing next. None of it mattered. He threw himself into hunting, tracking down and killing anything that threatened the peace and safety of Pleasantville. It didn't pay, and no one ever knew he did it, but it let him forget, and that was the most important thing.

Tommy had needed to forget.

Merton had needed to escape.

The wolf had needed to fight.

When he hunted there was no time to wonder about the future, or the past, no time for could have beens. In the fight there was only the opponent, and the knowledge that only one of them would leave alive.

There'd been a couple of close calls over time, he carried more than a few scars that even werewolf healing couldn't get rid of, but none of them hurt enough to distract him for long, none of them cut deep enough to remove the emptiness that filled him.

He did it anyway.

Because that's what Merton would have wanted.

Merton thought helping people was important, so Tommy would help them. The dark haired boy wasn't with him, but sometimes he could pretend, delude himself for just a moment that they were hunting together. He'd become so good at it that occasionally he even caught himself panicking when he turned around and the goth wasn't there.

He did his own research these days, sometimes well, sometimes not. Merton helped when he could, via long distance email or telephone, but Tommy tried not to bother him. He was already going places, both academically and supernaturally, which didn't leave much time for outside consulting work.

Tommy didn't mind.

He'd take what he could get.

Besides, limiting it to brief calls meant he was never tempted to ask dangerous questions like "Are you seeing someone?" Even the thought made the wolf stir angrily within him, and these days the wolf was better left alone.

His apartment was just as untidy and run down as when he'd left it that morning. His parents had given up on encouraging him to make something more of himself, stopped offering to pay his rent somewhere better. He didn't want their money, didn't need their disappointed looks. What he needed they couldn't give him.

He quickly showered and changed, loose boxers hanging low as he slid wearily into the bed. There was nothing in town that needed hunting tonight, nothing for him to take out his anger and frustration, and that meant a night facing his own demons instead. A night spent alone with the wolf. It grew stronger as time went on. Tried harder to bend him to its will. Fought more tenaciously against his control.

It tried to achieve through pain what it couldn't through persuasion.

The sky was clear that night, the moon had been bright. The wolf was strong.

The first twinge clenched his muscles just as the moon crossed the horizon and bathed the room in pale reflected light. He clenched his eyes shut against the brightness. It was barely half full, but these days it didn't seem to matter so much.

A second tremor caused a small whimper to escape him as he dug his hands into the mattress in an attempt to stifle it. The neighbours were used to the odd sounds coming from his apartment in the small hours of the morning, in this neighbourhood odd noises were the least of anyone's concerns.

He felt the wolf pulling at him from the back of his mind, the feral desperation of a caged animal, felt the struggle start for control of his body. It happened more often than not these days, these fights where he fought the wolf, where he lay awake shivering and howling until dawn broke and he fell into a fitful sleep for an hour or two before rising for work. It used to be rare. Used to be the exception.

At least he could sleep in tomorrow.

Eyes flashed yellow as he arched up off the bed, teeth gnashed together, snarling, at an invisible opponent. Canines lengthened, lips pulled back, claws slowly sliding into the mattress.

The first scream morphed into a howl as the fur spread down his chest, the echoes so full of loneliness and pain that he didn't even recognise them. The wolf worried at his mind like a dog with a chew toy, pulling and squeezing and twisting, searching for the weak point that would let it get a proper grip to pull itself out. It was an old game they played, one repeated countless times before.

Tommy didn't have weak points anymore.

"Tommy?" The voice was accompanied by three soft, careful knocks, the voice recognisable even through the solid timber door, and for a second Tommy lost himself in shock at the unexpected sound. It was all the wolf needed.

He'd often wondered, simply for the sake of it, what it would be like if he let the wolf win, whether the part of him that was Tommy would simply be pushed aside, watching through his own eyes as the wolf wore him like a costume. It had been a terrifying thought, that a monster could murder or kill whilst wearing his face, but the reality was even worse.

He was himself, he was still Tommy Dawkins, but he was Tommy Dawkins _and_ the wolf. Himself, yet both at the same time. The wolf drove him, he could feel every need and urge that pushed it, and in turn could feel them like his own.

The scent of Merton swirled in the air like perfume, drifting under the door like a faint breeze, the wolf wanted it, Tommy wanted it, and all the reasons in the world were not enough to stop them from having it.

Before he even realised he was standing the door handle was turning in his grip. Light from the hall slipped into the opening with agonising slowness, time moving like jelly as spiky black hair became visible, bright blue eyes alight with excitement at the surprise. Tommy had what felt like hours to take it all in, the things that hadn't changed, those that had. The goth still wore the same hair style, the same clothes, but now his ears were pierced through the cartilage, three rings in each, the black fingernails were longer, the eyeliner darker.

He wanted to not want the other boy, wanted to find the changes unattractive or off putting, but they weren't, they were just Merton, and Merton was all that Tommy wanted. Merton was all the wolf wanted.

"Hey Tommy!" Ecstasy travelled up his spine at the other's voice and he couldn't help it as his eyes shuttered and a whine escaped his throat. Reason eluded him, and the wolf didn't understand reason anyway. Before he could even stop to think about it his clawed hands were tangled in the black shirt and the door was slamming closed behind them.

The reality of kissing Merton was nothing like he'd imagined it would be, but then he'd never imagined he could ever need something as much as he needed the shorter boy at that moment. He'd always dreamed it would be sweet, innocent and a little shy. Instead it was hungry, aggressive, possessive all at the same time. The emptiness that consumed him fed on it, filling him with warmth and need, the wolf purring in the background, so desperate and content that he couldn't stop himself from joining in.

Merton was pressing against him, trying to pull away, trying to ask what was happening, but Tommy couldn't let him, couldn't lose the feeling that was taking away the pain and hurt that had become his life since Merton left.

The bed was soft as he pressed the smaller boy into the mattress, laying his weight down on top, one hand holding pale arms tight against the pillows above dark spikes, while the other made short work of the tight black shirt and he was able to run his fingertips over soft unmarked skin.

"Please..." It was his own broken voice that uttered the word between them, shattered and desperate as golden eyes sought blue in the pale moonlight. "Please..."

There was an instant, a tensing of pale perfection beneath him, and then Merton went limp, eyes taking in the raggedness of what he had become and understanding. Surrendering.

It was all Tommy needed.

It was all the wolf wanted.

With a snarl their mouth descended on the boy's body, tongue and lips and fangs touching every part of the bare chest and stomach available, wolf senses noting every single reaction it caused, noting which were good, which were bad, all of them imprinted on them, the taste of mate already coursing through their veins. Pale hands tentatively lifted away from where they had been held above the dark head, as though ascertaining whether such a move would be a threat, before gently lowering to touch the top of Tommy's head, tangling in brown locks as the first gasp of surprise and pleasure left black painted lips.

"Tommy..." it was faint, a bare whisper under a breath, but it was there and Tommy could have wept at the feeling it conveyed. Delicate hands slid down the fur of his back, over muscles and scars earned in two years of lonely battles, following every curve and line before reaching the waistband of his boxers and pausing.

Tommy noticed it even as his lips closed over a raised nipple, noticed the way the hands briefly shook, then his fangs grazed over the flesh in his mouth and the hands pushed at his boxers and they were falling gently down his legs to pool on the bed.

Clawed fingers tore at buttoned black denim, dragging them down over pale thighs, the juxtaposition of light and dark highlighted by the faint light of the moon. Merton was reasonably endowed, a little over average, not as large as Tommy, but well shaped, and Tommy's hand closed gently over the pulsing flesh. It didn't matter anyway, it was Merton. He was perfect. Slim fingers tensed momentarily on his sides and yellow eyes flicked up to see the surprise and embarrassment as the smaller boy noted the difference in their size, but the wolf would never submit to another male anyway, and Tommy could already feel himself being rewritten not to care or notice.

"Perfect." His voice was reverent, gloriously free and then he was spreading lubricant across his own cock and slowly pressing into the warm heat that opened around him.

It was indescribable, it was amazing, it was more than he could have ever hoped. He could feel the wolf howling in triumph, howled himself, into the darkness of the apartment, as Merton wrapped long legs around his waist and let him in. He kissed away eyeliner stained tears as he slid the last few inches into the other boy, ran clawed hands soothingly over the taut body beneath him as he pressed his darkly furred chest up against bare skin, and then dark lips pressed a kiss against his temple and he was lost.

He wasn't gentle, he knew that even as he was doing it, heard the occasional gasp of pain in between moans of pleasure, but he couldn't stop. The wolf pushed him ruthlessly toward completion, toward that now inevitable moment when the other boy would cease being Merton and become Mate.

Fluid suddenly filled his mouth, fangs long and exposed, the urge was there, not to bite, not to infect, but to mark, and before he even knew what he was doing he was kissing the slender throat beneath him, fangs pressing lengthways against the skin. He could almost feel the venom pulse through them, feel the heat of the acid as it seared the sensitive flesh of his mate, then all thought was forgotten as Merton gasped and stiffened as warmth spurted between them.

The scent of his mate's release was all it took, the unexpected tightening of the other boy around him pushing him into orgasm with a cross between a scream and a howl, spilling himself within the pale skinned goth, golden eyes locked on the ceiling as the wolf shouted its claiming to the world.

It seemed so fast, so intense, that there was a minute, maybe two, of absolute, euphoric perfection afterwards, as the wolf calmed itself and slowly retreated, fur and fangs disappearing with it. Tommy could feel the smile on his lips, feel the satisfaction of the wolf finally released, and then with a start he was himself again. It took a second to register, a second to understand exactly what he'd just done to his best friend, a second to slowly and carefully pull himself from Merton with a minimum of pain and then he hurled himself off the bed and promptly dry heaved onto the floor.

"Oh god... Merton... I..." He didn't have any words that seemed sufficient to explain or defend exactly what had just happened, and he didn't even know if he could have meant them.

_Mate._

The word moved through his head like a breeze, clearing away pain and hurt and anguish as though it had never been. Merton was just there, in every thought and feeling, every corner of his mind. There weren't words to describe it.

A soft hand landed on his head and he looked up from normal brown eyes into blue.

"I understand Tommy." And there _was_ understanding there, understanding born from knowledge of just what had happened to Tommy and why, mixed in with hurt and betrayal, but there nonetheless. "It's ok." His eyes fell to the other's neck, stretched out toward him, where the blistered skin was already healing in the shape of his fangs, his mark. His mate.

"No it's not Merton. It's not ok." There was a moment, an instant, where Tommy feared the pale boy would agree with him and leave, a moment where Tommy envisaged a thousand ways he could kill himself in penance for what he had just done. Then, with agonising slowness, two arms wrapped hesitantly around him and pulled him gently onto the bed.

"Maybe not right now, Tommy. But it will be."

Tommy had been twenty when he first realised he had Merton.

Twenty and hopelessly in love.

Twenty and mated for life…

_Fin~_


End file.
